Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a hearing assistance system comprising an first hearing assistance device to be worn at a first one of the user's ears for hearing stimulation of the first ear and a second hearing assistance device to be worn at the second ear of the user for hearing stimulation of the second ear, wherein both hearing assistance devices comprise a first interface for wireless data exchange with each other in order to implement binaural system and a second interface for wireless reception of an external data stream of external data stream source, such as a phone device or a wireless microphone.
Description of Related Art
Typically, the interface for binaural communication, which may use an inductive link, is a short range interface having a lower power consumption than the interface used for external data stream reception, which may use, for example, a 2.4 GHz technology, such as Bluetooth, in order to act as a long range interface.
Typically, power consumption is an issue for ear level devices. Therefore, binaural hearing assistant systems have been developed, wherein the external data stream is received only by one of the devices via the long range interface and is forwarded to the other device via the binaural short range interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,300,864 B2 relates to a binaural hearing aid system, wherein an audio stream from a telephone device is transmitted via a short range inductive link to one of the hearing aids and is forwarded via a second wireless link which is used by the hearing aids to exchange data to the other hearing aid.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,831,508 B2 relates to a binaural hearing aid system comprising two hearing instruments and a body-worn audio gateway device which form a body area network, wherein the audio gateway device acts as a master and the hearing instruments act as slaves, with the audio gateway device being connected via a wireless link to a phone device. The audio stream received by the master device is forwarded as an upstream signal to the slaves. In uplink may be used not only for audio data transmission but also for changing the settings of the slave devices by the master device.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,050,439 B2 relates to a binaural hearing system, wherein a bidirectional wireless link between the two hearing aids as used to exchange information concerning the battery charge status of each hearing aid in order to reduce power consumption of the hearing aid having the lower remaining battery lifetime once the difference of the remaining battery charges exceeds a certain limit.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,041,066 B2 relates to a binaural hearing aid system, wherein one of the two stereo channels received by one of the hearing aids via a wireless link is forwarded to the other hearing aid via a wireless link.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,526,648 B2 relates to a binaural hearing assistance system, wherein an audio signal from a wireless microphone is transmitted to the hearing assistances devices, wherein the link quality to each hearing assistance device is monitored, and wherein the signal received via the better link is relayed via a binaural link to the other hearing assistance device.
European Patent Application EP 2 439 960 A1 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 8,942,396 relate to a binaural hearing aid system, wherein data is relayed from one of the hearing aids to the other hearing aid if the other hearing aid does not receive the data correctly from a data streaming device which transmits data to both hearing aids.